For many years now my life has been mostly slow, sometimes painfully so. While I treasure the peace and quiet of my little farm and the companionship of my animals and a few close souls, life had decided to speed up with little warning. In many ways over the past years I’ve felt like Winter itself, living deep inside, unconcerned with the daily goings on of others. It’s been the most transformative experience of my life – outside of living abroad.
With so much change it’s hard to see where things will end up, hopefully someplace much more suited to who I am and who I’m becoming.
This winter has reminded me of my first winter here, six years ago. It was a fairly mild winter where the daffodils pushed out of the ground mid January. The same thing happened this year. It’s only mid February and my newly matured plum tree already has flower buds. Many hardwoods are also beginning to sprout leaf buds and the grass is even beginning to green up in areas.
Recently, I was away from the farm for my longest work trip ever – 8 looong days. Kahuna made the trip with me but stayed with his Nana and Pop. He’s almost sixteen so leaving him for any amount of time is heavy on my heart. On the way home he showed interest in looking out the window on his own – something he’s never done before in all our travels together. I opened the window for him off and on and he seemed to really love it. It seems old dogs can learn new tricks.
Upon returning home I don’t know who was happier – me or the animals. Poppy, my saddleback goose was so happy she ran to me honking then paused, squatted and laid one of her perfect giant eggs. It was the best gift, a sign of potential new life.
New life is exactly what this little farm and I both need. Other than chicks, we’ve had little in the way of new life since the string of horrible deaths over the past 1.5 years. It’s time to welcome new life here. In the meantime I hope to have the time to enjoy fresh eggs the girls have started cranking out.